Both of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 of the racing team from Bubenheim had to retire at the last round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. The gullwing race car of Michael Zehe (Flörsheim-Dalsheim/ Germany), Marko Hartung (Wallroda/ Germany) and Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt/ Germany) with start number six had to stop the race due to an accident in lap twelve. Only a short time later, Nico Bastian (Frankfurt/ Germany) stopped on the track in lap 16 with technical failure in the sister car with number seven which he drove together with double starter Jan Seyffarth.
Following the qualifying in the morning, ROWE RACING took the start to the four hour endurance race over the Nürburgring Nordschleife from fifth grid position (Bastian / Seyffarth) and from seventh position (Zehe / Hartung / Seyffarth) respectively. In the exciting race, the two gullwing cars showed excellent performances right from the beginning and were temporarily able to go into the lead until they had to retire.
ROWE RACING team manager Hans-Peter Naundorf: “We missed that little bit of luck today to finish the race successfully. We have Thank God so far not suffered a lot of technical troubles, as was the case today unfortunately and which was the consequence for car number seven to be compelled to stop the race. Our second car, number six, had a slight accident which however made it impossible to continue. We are now going to fully concentrate onto the coming season and use the winter break to be perfectly prepared for the 2014 season.”
Despite the unfortunate outcome of the last two rounds of the season, ROWE RACING can look back onto a successful season with the victory at the 6 Hour Race in August as the highlight. Furthermore, the team attracted a lot of attention at the Nürburgring 24 Hour Race where they finished third and fourth.
